Save Article

Enron Overstretch

Updated April 20, 2005 11:59 p.m. ET

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

We've supported most of the recent financial-scandal prosecutions on the grounds that the best way to clean up the mess and prevent future ones is to hold executives accountable. But a zeal for justice doesn't mean prosecutors also have license to set bad law, even if the case in question is called Enron.

Which brings us to tomorrow's sentencing in a federal court in Houston of...